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>Hey Miranda,
>
>A quandary, indeed, yet my question(s) would be...
>
>How would anyone receiving, or using the references have any way of knowing
>that those providing the references are in fact incompetent? Wouldn't
>positive references from "incompetent" managers carry just as much weight as
>positive references from "competent" managers?
His current manager does not want to lose him. Worse, if he should be asked to write anything about Stephen, he'd be seen as incapable of judging anyone's abilities. Stephen believes that his manager is well-known in the local technical writing community and that his recommendation would be worthless among those who know him.
>
>The only way I see that using the reference of an incompetent manager would
>be detrimental is if the reference is negative in nature. And one has
>little or no control over what a manager says about an employee in that type
>of situation.
His manager has said and done a few things that make Stephen not trust him at all.
>There are objective means of determining whether a writer is competent or
>not. But how would one determine if a manager's opinion of one's skill(s)
>and/or talent(s) was competent?
I know there are other writers at Stephen's company who *are* competent, so perhaps that's what he should use -- other writers. Just on general principles, he tells me, using his present manager as a professional reference is (to him) "like using Bill Clinton as a character reference."
When Stephen was leaving his old job, he used one of his fellow writers as a reference and that writer commented to him about the person who called him for a reference (his soon-to-be new and incompetent manager). He told Stephen that the guy sounded "dead".
Here's a case where the title is truly meaningless!
Mira
--
Miranda O'Connor
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